Page 41 of A Serving of Hope

“I was told they didn’t marry out of love, but I’ve never heard the details. Why do you ask?”

“Your mother’s father, Uichi, loved marine sports and was always out in his yacht. You knew that much, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Once, he took your mother, Hamae, on a cruise down to Amami Oshima, and they got into an accident.”

Saki’s eyes widened. “Really? No one ever told me that.”

“See, Amami Oshima is paradise for marine sports enthusiasts,” said Nagare, unfolding a map. It showed the island of Amami Oshima, some two hundred miles south of the Japanese mainland.

A dubious expression had come over Saki’s face. “Neither my grandfather nor my mother ever mentioned going there.”

“Probably didn’t want to bring it up. It may have been quite a painful memory for your grandfather.”

“What exactly happened?”

“He made a steering error, and they collided with a fishing boat. They were both thrown into the sea. Hamae was still a little girl, and almost drowned. It was your father, Shigeru, who saved her.” Nagare smiled warmly at Saki. “He was ten years old at the time.”

“My…father?”

“That’s right. The boat they collided with was captained by his own father, Katsushige, and he happened to be aboard. Katsushige and the crew were so busy trying to save their own vessel that they didn’t even notice Hamae, while Uichi had also lost sight of her in the chaos. Shigeru spotted her and dived in to save her.”

Saki looked shell-shocked. “That…really happened?”

“Hamae had breathed in a lot of seawater. After the rescue, she hovered between life and death for five whole days.”

“And that’s how my parents met?”

“Exactly.”

Saki gave him a puzzled look. “But how did that lead to them getting married?”

“Out of gratitude, Uichi began taking Hamae to Amami every year for the summer holidays. And because she and Shigeru were close in age, they grew very close. Almost like brother and sister.”

“They have always acted a bit like siblings,” said Saki, her gaze softening slightly. “The quiet older brother and the mischievous little sister.”

“But it seems Uichi and Katsushige never really managed to get along.”

“Come to think of it, all I’ve ever been told about my paternal grandfather is that he died young.”

“It makes a sort of sense. Uichi was heir to the Morishita family, a former zaibatsu conglomerate. Katsushige was a humble fisherman. Their circumstances couldn’t have been more different. And besides…” Nagare seemed to hesitate.

Saki leaned in closer. “Besides?”

“As I said, Uichi was only visiting Amami to show how grateful he was for his daughter’s rescue. But Katsushige began to think he was making advances on Kaneko.”

A quiet sigh escaped Saki’s lips.

“It was true that Kaneko, for her part, had begun to feel quite fond of Uichi, though not in the way her husband suspected. But for the headstrong Katsushige, even that was unforgivable. His drinking can’t have helped. In the end, he threw her and Shigeru out of the house.” Nagare was relaying the story exactly as he’d heard it from Mr. Masaki.

“And that’s how they ended up in Takahama?”

“Believing he had separated a wife from her husband, and a son from his father, Uichi offered Kaneko his villa in Takahama. He charged her no rent and asked only that she and Shigeru look after the house. This was about three years after the accident.”

“But…Amami to Takahama is a huge distance. If they were going to move all that way, he might as well have put them up in Kotsubo.”

“His wife—your other grandmother, Sadako—was in poor health. I assume he didn’t want to worry her.”